My contribution to the Second Reading of the Seafarers Wages Bill yesterday:

I appreciate being given the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I declare an interest as a proud member of the RMT parliamentary group, and I support the maritime sector and our seafarers, as well as those involved in the dispute in the rail sector with Network Rail and the train operating companies.

I was present in the House when the actions of P&O became apparent on St Patrick’s day. Those actions represent the lowest point in industrial relations in this country for many years. There are some parallels with Tiny Rowland, the unacceptable face of capitalism, and some of the excesses that went on with the asset stripping of Michael Slade and others, but this is about as low as it gets.

I was buoyed up by the response from Ministers, including the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), the former shipping Minister, who was incandescent. I was under the impression that the will in the House and the country was such that measures would quickly be brought before the House to take P&O Ferries to task—to fine it and to take appropriate action against its chief executive. The chief executive was arrogant and flippant in his presentation to the joint session of the Transport Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee; he was almost boastful that he had not consulted with the unions and had broken the law. I am therefore disappointed that it has taken nine months—we are now in December; it is almost January—to have a Bill intended to address the issues. I will support the Bill, but I have reservations and I hope that it is possible to improve it in Committee or even on Report.

Certainly, the Government cannot claim that the issue came as a bolt from the blue, because the unions, particularly the RMT, warned them about it in 2020 when an order was introduced to extend the national minimum wage to seafarers in UK territorial waters. It then warned them again in 2021 when there were issues with Irish Ferries, which was operating services between Dover and Calais and undercutting P&O and DFDS. I will outline some of my concerns with the Bill, in the hope that we can secure the best deal for seafarers, which is an outcome that I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House want to see.

Successive Governments have convened legal working groups on seafarers and the national minimum wage. I think the first was in 2009. We have a major problem with seafarer care that the minimum wage alone cannot address. We were promised a review of the Equality Act 2010 regulations, but that has not happened, which is a major failure in the Government’s seafarer policy. The powers in the Bill to make secondary regulations disguise the complexity and the narrowness of the legislation. I ask the Minister: will the UK national minimum wage age bands apply to the national minimum wage equivalence declaration? P&O, of course, dismissed apprentices, as well as hundreds of directly employed seafarers, but does the Minister consider a £4.81 hourly rate for apprentice seafarers fair? The Maritime Skills Commission’s ratings review, which is extremely welcome, should look at this aspect of the Bill, but it is vital to avoid putting in place any more barriers to training more ratings in the UK.

As well as training, the Government must facilitate employment opportunities. I fully understand the sentiments expressed by hon. Friends who represent ports where there are opportunities, particularly for young people to have a career at sea, but the Government have a role in ensuring that those jobs are not taken by agency workers from overseas.

When the Bill was in the other place, the noble Lord Hendy discussed the lack of national minimum wage protection for crew working in the offshore wind and offshore renewable supply chain beyond the UK territorial waters limit. Crew working on vessels servicing the offshore oil and gas industry across the UK continental shelf are entitled to protection under national minimum wage legislation, but crew working on offshore wind farms in the UK exclusive economic zone—sometimes on the same ships—are not. That is unfair, and it leads to serious exploitation.

Rosters have been mentioned. The Bill recognises to a certain extent that national minimum wage avoidance is a problem in the UK shipping industry, but it does not fully cover wider employment rights issues, such as the hours and roster patterns that seafarers work; neither do the raft of secondary powers that the Bill creates. On Report in the other place, the Minister openly stated that the Government are not seeking to influence roster patterns—I believe that the Secretary of State said the same thing today—or any other employment conditions through the Bill. To give this legislation a greater chance of successfully countering the actions of P&O, Irish Ferries and others who are trashing UK seafarer jobs and the maritime skills base in order to increase their profits, the seafarers’ charter should be put in the Bill.

On the seafarers’ charter, we really need a maximum roster pattern of two weeks on, two weeks off, in the ferry sector. I urge the Minister to work with the Labour party and the trade unions on the Bill, and on the seafarers’ charter, so that we get this right, restore jobs, get fair pay agreements, and start training programmes in the ferry sector. Members have pointed out that P&O is making bigger savings from its changes to roster patterns than it was from having rates of pay that were below the national minimum wage.

In the other place, the Government rejected the previously agreed roster pattern in the charter. It is commissioning further research on roster patterns and crewing levels. That is despite a collectively agreed standard being in place in Stena Line and DFDS. I refer the Minister to Cardiff University’s crew fatigue study for P&O in 2012, the EU Horizon 2020 project, and the World Maritime University’s EVREST report. All that evidence has been shared with the Government. I am surprised and disappointed that the Government have not taken action to tackle low-cost operators, particularly in view of the issues of crew fatigue and safety.

Others have raised the issues of port-hopping and avoidance techniques. I asked the Secretary of State about that when he appeared before the Transport Committee. The criteria are too loose; we need to have a look at that. Port-hopping remains a genuine avoidance technique, and it becomes easier to use the more frequently a vessel calls at harbour. I support the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and Nautilus International in specifying that the threshold in the Bill should be 52 calls at a harbour per year per vessel, rather than the 120 that the Government suggest.

In conclusion, the Bill is an opportunity to mandate better pay and employment standards, to restore the principle of collective bargaining conditions at P&O and across the ferry sector, and to ensure fair pay and safe, decent employment conditions for decent, hard-working seafarers. The Bill’s scope must be widened to tackle avoidance techniques, and to help to standardise fair pay and collective conditions, starting in the ferry sector. I hope that the Minister will address the concerns that I have raised, and ensure the best possible deal for seafarers.